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I am sure they can, as they have done a lot of quality builds for Supra customers, however that also carries a heavy price tag. I was trying they had a kit out that would compare to HPF's kits, which apparently they do not. Thank you.

I know that SP builds quality stuff at very reasonable and fair prices for the Supra guys, so I was hoping they had a kit out for the M3s now. Right now HPF owns the market for turbo E46s and prices their kits accordingly. I would love an alternative to HPF and for competition to bring the best products at the best prices to the customers.

FYI, not trying to start or continue an argument between SP and HPF builds/kits that seems to be brewing.

I am sure they can, as they have done a lot of quality builds for Supra customers, however that also carries a heavy price tag. I was trying they had a kit out that would compare to HPF's kits, which apparently they do not. Thank you.

I know that SP builds quality stuff at very reasonable and fair prices for the Supra guys, so I was hoping they had a kit out for the M3s now. Right now HPF owns the market for turbo E46s and prices their kits accordingly. I would love an alternative to HPF and for competition to bring the best products at the best prices to the customers.

FYI, not trying to start or continue an argument between SP and HPF builds/kits that seems to be brewing.

There's no argument between the two.

The difference between SP and HPF is not going to be price, its going to be end product. One is a 'kit' the other is 'custom' .. both will likely yield similar costs. Custom general equates to more labor and a one off result, which some like. HPF instead invested in significant manufacturing costs, having most of their products cad designed, and cast, or machined. End result is an OEM looking car, some prefer this, even if it means there may be 100 others like it.

I can tell you this.. HPF's kit isn't expensive to be expensive.. its expensive because the cost to produce it and design/r&d it was high.

I may not be a huge fan of Chris B, and HPF and I may have had our differences but there is absolutely no denying that they may have been the first to truly SET THE BAR as far as kit quality and design goes... the cost alone for that intake manifold was likely tens of thousands to go from a cad drawing to a cast piece. When they priced their kit they likely took into consideration how many kits it would take to break even on R&D/Manufacturing and how many kits over all they felt they'd sell. They then priced their kits around that.

If I had to guess I'd say they've sold anywhere from 125 to 150 kits.. if I had to guess the development costs and initial manufacturing costs (including payroll for those DOING the work) was probably well over $300k. Then you take into account the cost of manufacturing each piece (after the casting/r&d/etc) and you're probably looking at a cost of $5k-$7k for like a stage 1. Now lets do the math.. they've sold 150 stage 1's lets say (i'm going to ignore engine building, stage 2's, etc, etc..) then they'd have made $2.25m (subtract costs and its like 1.1m).. over the last 5+ years they've been selling the kits. Divide that by 5 and you're looking at only $220k/yr.. toss in all the marketing costs, blown motors, warranty work, continued payroll for those still installing, and updating the kit and the significantly oversized 15ksqft shop and suddenly Chris B isn't sitting on a uncle scrooge style pile of cash like most think. You also need to be aware that the AA's and ESS's of the world sell kits with significantly less hard parts, and use the stock DME which means less costs per kit sold.. but likely just as high of R&D costs.

Rustles my jimmies when people think that some magical $7k E46 m3 turbo kit is 'just around the corner' due to competition.. it isn't.

The difference between SP and HPF is not going to be price, its going to be end product. One is a 'kit' the other is 'custom' .. both will likely yield similar costs. Custom general equates to more labor and a one off result, which some like. HPF instead invested in significant manufacturing costs, having most of their products cad designed, and cast, or machined. End result is an OEM looking car, some prefer this, even if it means there may be 100 others like it.

I can tell you this.. HPF's kit isn't expensive to be expensive.. its expensive because the cost to produce it and design/r&d it was high.

I may not be a huge fan of Chris B, and HPF and I may have had our differences but there is absolutely no denying that they may have been the first to truly SET THE BAR as far as kit quality and design goes... the cost alone for that intake manifold was likely tens of thousands to go from a cad drawing to a cast piece. When they priced their kit they likely took into consideration how many kits it would take to break even on R&D/Manufacturing and how many kits over all they felt they'd sell. They then priced their kits around that.

If I had to guess I'd say they've sold anywhere from 125 to 150 kits.. if I had to guess the development costs and initial manufacturing costs (including payroll for those DOING the work) was probably well over $300k. Then you take into account the cost of manufacturing each piece (after the casting/r&d/etc) and you're probably looking at a cost of $5k-$7k for like a stage 1. Now lets do the math.. they've sold 150 stage 1's lets say (i'm going to ignore engine building, stage 2's, etc, etc..) then they'd have made $2.25m (subtract costs and its like 1.1m).. over the last 5+ years they've been selling the kits. Divide that by 5 and you're looking at only $220k/yr.. toss in all the marketing costs, blown motors, warranty work, continued payroll for those still installing, and updating the kit and the significantly oversized 15ksqft shop and suddenly Chris B isn't sitting on a uncle scrooge style pile of cash like most think. You also need to be aware that the AA's and ESS's of the world sell kits with significantly less hard parts, and use the stock DME which means less costs per kit sold.. but likely just as high of R&D costs.

Rustles my jimmies when people think that some magical $7k E46 m3 turbo kit is 'just around the corner' due to competition.. it isn't.

Their shop and turbo kit sales bring in about five percent of total income.

The difference between SP and HPF is not going to be price, its going to be end product. One is a 'kit' the other is 'custom' .. both will likely yield similar costs. Custom general equates to more labor and a one off result, which some like. HPF instead invested in significant manufacturing costs, having most of their products cad designed, and cast, or machined. End result is an OEM looking car, some prefer this, even if it means there may be 100 others like it.

I can tell you this.. HPF's kit isn't expensive to be expensive.. its expensive because the cost to produce it and design/r&d it was high.

I may not be a huge fan of Chris B, and HPF and I may have had our differences but there is absolutely no denying that they may have been the first to truly SET THE BAR as far as kit quality and design goes... the cost alone for that intake manifold was likely tens of thousands to go from a cad drawing to a cast piece. When they priced their kit they likely took into consideration how many kits it would take to break even on R&D/Manufacturing and how many kits over all they felt they'd sell. They then priced their kits around that.

If I had to guess I'd say they've sold anywhere from 125 to 150 kits.. if I had to guess the development costs and initial manufacturing costs (including payroll for those DOING the work) was probably well over $300k. Then you take into account the cost of manufacturing each piece (after the casting/r&d/etc) and you're probably looking at a cost of $5k-$7k for like a stage 1. Now lets do the math.. they've sold 150 stage 1's lets say (i'm going to ignore engine building, stage 2's, etc, etc..) then they'd have made $2.25m (subtract costs and its like 1.1m).. over the last 5+ years they've been selling the kits. Divide that by 5 and you're looking at only $220k/yr.. toss in all the marketing costs, blown motors, warranty work, continued payroll for those still installing, and updating the kit and the significantly oversized 15ksqft shop and suddenly Chris B isn't sitting on a uncle scrooge style pile of cash like most think. You also need to be aware that the AA's and ESS's of the world sell kits with significantly less hard parts, and use the stock DME which means less costs per kit sold.. but likely just as high of R&D costs.

Rustles my jimmies when people think that some magical $7k E46 m3 turbo kit is 'just around the corner' due to competition.. it isn't.

I see where you are coming from and understand that it costs money to do the R&D, tooling, and warranty the kits. All I am saying is that I think that with competition we could see Stage 1s around $10k, which is the cost of an install of the kit plus some, cheaper than where they are currently priced at.

Are you suggesting that a Stage 1 HPF and a custom build from SP with similar performance would be similar in cost? I could see a big build being similar in price but small builds I would think HPF would actually be cheaper than custom work, due to the labor/fabrication work necessary.

Also, one reason why UGR has been so popular with Lamborghini/other exotic owners is the level of fit and finish, resulting in OEM appearance/quality.

MSpired was telling me he can hook in 2nd no problem.. its a Stage 2.5 as well.. I'm not making THAT much more power than them and in 2nd on slicks on a prep'd track it wasn't hooking.. and that was on spring only! i can't imagine what it would feel like if these cars hooked in second.

The difference between SP and HPF is not going to be price, its going to be end product. One is a 'kit' the other is 'custom' .. both will likely yield similar costs. Custom general equates to more labor and a one off result, which some like. HPF instead invested in significant manufacturing costs, having most of their products cad designed, and cast, or machined. End result is an OEM looking car, some prefer this, even if it means there may be 100 others like it.

I can tell you this.. HPF's kit isn't expensive to be expensive.. its expensive because the cost to produce it and design/r&d it was high.

I may not be a huge fan of Chris B, and HPF and I may have had our differences but there is absolutely no denying that they may have been the first to truly SET THE BAR as far as kit quality and design goes... the cost alone for that intake manifold was likely tens of thousands to go from a cad drawing to a cast piece. When they priced their kit they likely took into consideration how many kits it would take to break even on R&D/Manufacturing and how many kits over all they felt they'd sell. They then priced their kits around that.

If I had to guess I'd say they've sold anywhere from 125 to 150 kits.. if I had to guess the development costs and initial manufacturing costs (including payroll for those DOING the work) was probably well over $300k. Then you take into account the cost of manufacturing each piece (after the casting/r&d/etc) and you're probably looking at a cost of $5k-$7k for like a stage 1. Now lets do the math.. they've sold 150 stage 1's lets say (i'm going to ignore engine building, stage 2's, etc, etc..) then they'd have made $2.25m (subtract costs and its like 1.1m).. over the last 5+ years they've been selling the kits. Divide that by 5 and you're looking at only $220k/yr.. toss in all the marketing costs, blown motors, warranty work, continued payroll for those still installing, and updating the kit and the significantly oversized 15ksqft shop and suddenly Chris B isn't sitting on a uncle scrooge style pile of cash like most think. You also need to be aware that the AA's and ESS's of the world sell kits with significantly less hard parts, and use the stock DME which means less costs per kit sold.. but likely just as high of R&D costs.

Rustles my jimmies when people think that some magical $7k E46 m3 turbo kit is 'just around the corner' due to competition.. it isn't.

Very well said!! Agree on everything 100%

I do not have HPF kit but I have some parts from them and everyone who seen the parts at the shop was amazed how well they made (intake manifold,AEM wiring harness,misc brackets) it took lotsa money and time to put those kits together... I might not agree with HPF 100% on everything but if it wasn't them and their R/D and money we would still be far away from daily driven turbo M3s...

Their main income is on parts sales...not sure if its 95% but its huge percentage

Roughly 15% of our gross sales came from HPF parts last year. That includes all HPF parts for all cars we provide parts for and the labor to install them on the cars that come to our shop. The other 85% came from our on-line sales of other companies products. We have 3.5 million parts on-line with around 14,000 people per day on our site. Our shop takes up 15,000 sq feet of our 21,000 sq feet total with 5 lifts and 4 techs total (ChrisK + Aaron + 2 contracted techs John Reed and DOC Race). We are going to be adding more techs and more lifts over the next couple months. We signed a new lease and get to spend a large sum of money on remodeling the shop so that is also coming up in the next month. We are doing more cars and more types of cars as we expand our product lineup to the newer generations and expand our business to include standard service work. We are also jumping into other makes as we have a long history with several other types of cars. We have a lot of exciting things still coming out for the E46 M3. I haven't spoken much on the forums but it's a pleasure to see what everyone is up to these days and see how our customers are doing. It always puts a smile on my face to see others enjoying what we've produced.

I'm glad Marcus brought up the comments about our product and our price point. Thanks Marcus. We have not raised our prices on our M3 products one bit over the past 6 years, and in fact we've lowered them on many occasions. One thing we continue to do however is to improve our kits and we continue to provide more options for them.

Marcus is right... we don't have a ton of money sitting around and we have to be very careful where we spend it. I've blown my load on the development costs on all of the products that we now offer and it's not going to be paid back until we sell lots and lots of them. When we get more money, we end up spending it on growth with more products and more expansion anyway.

We've altered the company as of recently and moved more people into growth. This has been wonderful for me as I am no longer the one talking about everything we're doing. KrisG has done a great job with our blog and facebook pages, Derek has been working with me on the web-site and even though we switched back to the old one there will be some very impressive changes coming soon, Russ is cleaning up the content on the site and will be restructuring where parts are, we hired Trevor to help CJ out with all the shipping and receiving. CJ is the air traffic controller that is in charge of making sure every part gets to every customer and he's done a fantastic job. We hired another tech Aaron (worked for GReddy and SP Engineering) to get trained up by our lead technician ChrisK who's been with HPF for nearly 5 years in the shop and has single handidly supported every HPF turbo kit customer on the road. Kristin is still amazing in accounting and has run our accounting for nearly 5 years as well. Kirk and Erik are kicking butt in sales.

Josh and I have moved our day to day activities into the call center and the service department with the rest of the staff. We have multiple phones, computers, desks, etc. He and I sit with everyone else now and it's really allowed us to make quite a difference. Being immersed in everything that's going on has allowed us to improve efficiencies and that's what we've been working on since the switch occurred. Josh is the best of the best. He's been with me now since the beginning of HPF nearly 12 years ago. I work every day but I don't need to be here and that's because I have 100% faith in every decision and every step Josh takes.

I'm glad everyone had a great time at this event, enjoyed their cars, and most importantly was safe and made it home safely.